Book and Ocean return to the site of their first big adventure and reunite with some old friends. A lot of other stuff happens but it is too specific to not be a spoiler. But it gets wild.

This one is mostly the consequences of one's actions. And poor dice rolls.

Welcome to Oops!

All Apocalypses, a show where we explore the collapse of society by playing fun, tabletop, role-playing games.

I'm your host, Stu Masterson, and I'm joined by two 2012 Coachella holograms.

Hey, everybody, this is Tupac.

I am Brady, and I play Book McCready, a sleuth who is suspicious and surly.

Just going for an alliteration didn't work.

Seductive.

That's a horrible.

He's not seductive, though.

Slythery.

If anything, he's stalkerish.

Stinky.

He probably is.

Stupid as fuck.

And I'm Left Shark.

I am also Jacob.

That's my non-stage name.

I play Ocean, a gentle giant who is looking forward to becoming...

Why was Left Shark better than Right Shark?

I don't know, but you interrupted my description of Ocean.

I'm so sorry.

But you brought up Left Shark, and I feel like that's...

We'll get back to Left Shark.

We'll get back to Left Shark.

But I am Ocean.

I'm Jacob.

My God, you've thrown me for a loop, Brady.

I'm Jacob, and I'm playing Ocean, a gentle giant who is looking forward to becoming a semi-aquatic gentle giant.

I love that.

I'm sorry you interrupted it.

That was good.

Yeah, it would have been really cool if it was just smooth transition.

It does kind of tie into his interruption about Left Shark, though, because Left Shark is aquatic.

That's true.

I think.

I don't know.

He's a mascot, so it's hard to tell.

Why is Left Shark better than Right Shark, though?

I think it's just because he was doing, like, some wild dance moves on the stage.

Were they in sync?

I thought the whole point was that they were doing the same thing.

No, Left Shark was definitely better.

He had pizzazz.

They were in sync, but they weren't, like, in sync, you know?

Yeah.

One had clear talent, and the other was just a backup dancer.

So...

Did you know in sync is an acronym?

No, I didn't.

I just thought it was in sync.

I thought they were just...

It's from the last letters of all their first names.

Oh, that's dumb.

My God, that's actually...

I didn't know that at all.

I literally thought it was just an edgy 90s way of spelling, in sync.

What are their first names?

Justin, Chris, Joey, Jason, JC.

Everyone's doing math.

I mean, Joey feels like it's cheating a little bit, because his real last name...

Because his Christian name is Joseph.

Yeah, because, like, it should be, no, wait...

This week, this question is a short question, and it's okay.

I hope it's yes or no.

That's all I've got in me today.

It's not yes or no.

It's a short question.

It's an all right.

It's okay.

It's nothing too great.

But we'll ask it anyway.

A lot of this stuff is about your past, which is really rough with one of the characters not having a past.

And the other one having a very traumatic past.

It's not that traumatic.

The question this week is what is your most treasured memory?

Well, I think with Ocean having a very limited number of memories to go for, the old memory that straight jumps up to me as his most treasured would probably be the sharing the beans, which is what we know of.

But that's that's I guess that's the if I think about it, I think that's probably the first time Ocean probably began to feel less like a cave dwelling gremlin and more like an actual human being with like somebody he can attach to.

So I think that's probably his most treasured memory at this point.

Very sweet and tells us nothing new.

No, it doesn't tell us anything.

But what else?

What?

My memories are literally what has occurred in this podcast.

What about the first time you met Vesuvius?

That's a great memory, actually.

I'm sorry, Brady, but that's also nothing new as well.

His least favorite memory is meeting Vesuvius for a second time.

That is at the stand of last episode.

And Book having a psychotic break for three days straight.

I think Book's favorite memory is the first time he got paid for something that he did.

For sleuthing for his brain?

Yeah, the first time he earned a buck instead of getting, you know, handouts for being a little kid who didn't have parents anymore.

What was that?

It was...

a lady lost her cat.

And he found the cat.

Nice.

We now have cats down here?

Great change.

It's a good first mystery.

She gave him half of a AAA battery.

It was broken.

Got acid all over his fingers.

And there's acid everywhere.

I have to give my most treasured memory?

Way harder.

Is it meeting me?

No.

At Los Trojans?

See, it's really...

Wait, that's really where you guys met?

Yeah, we met at a Mexican restaurant.

We just doxxed ourselves here.

Trivia night, Los Trojans.

And the rest is history.

And I impressed Brady so much with my trivia knowledge.

He was like, I gotta follow this guy around.

And I was mediocre enough to get a call back.

You knew what baleen whales were, though.

That's true.

What the fuck is a baleen whale?

So, baleen is...

So, some whales have teeth, like sperm whales, have sharp teeth, little chompers.

And other whales have...

It's still dermal tissue, but instead it forms these, like, very long and very thin rows.

Oh, those little, meshy thing-looking teeth.

And they use it to filter water so that they scoop water.

Water flows out, but the fish and the krill stay in their mouth.

Oh, yeah, I didn't know those were called baleen whale.

Baleen.

And the teeth are called baleen.

That's why I like trivia, because I learn every time and never forget.

Yeah, so last week when Stu was like, and Brady likes podcasts, what he forgot to say is that I'm a big marine bio nerd.

Yeah, you did go to fish school.

I got a flashback to that listening to the podcast again.

And sure enough, we just kind of glossed it over.

But we did indeed, you did indeed say you went to fish school and then just glossed it over and never brought it up again.

I went to fish school.

In arc two, it'll come up more.

I mean, I did I did remember chromatophores off the top of my dome, bro.

So that should have been true.

That's pretty good.

It's hard for my most treasured memory because my favorite memories.

I'm a phonologist, right?

I'm a big expert on fun things.

That's true.

And what professional phonologists say is there's type two fun or type one and type two fun.

Type one fun is like what most people would consider fun.

Type two fun are experiences that are objectively terrible, but are really fun to talk about later.

And those are my favorite memories.

So it's really hard for me to say like, what's my most treasured memory?

Because it would probably be something that sounds not fun at all.

But it's a great story.

Yeah, but it's a really fun story to tell.

Stu, can I share my favorite memory of yours that you shared with me?

It's that in college, you were working on a guitar riff, and you hit guitar riff gold, and you were just killing it, and you'd gotten it down, you perfected it.

And then your roommate walked in and was like, oh, you're playing the Jurassic Park theme.

Oh, that was really good.

Do you want me to tell that story?

I mean, I feel like I just did, but go for it.

Yeah, that is a very good memory.

I was just messing around the guitar, and I found this line that I really liked.

And I kept playing it, and I kept nailing it down more and more.

And I was like, this is super dope.

I need to record this, put this in a song.

And when I was done, right when my roommate walked in, the first thing he said within seconds was like, oh, Jurassic Park theme.

And it was 100% the Jurassic Park theme, which I had not seen the movies in a very long time at that point.

But the theme is a pretty popular song that I should have immediately realized.

You're like, oh damn, I guess I'm not spitting as much fire as I thought I was out of my fingertips.

So now I'm paranoid about everything I make ever.

I mean, you're in good company with John Williams.

Well, we're in a very tension filled moment right now, and I think we should jump back to the action.

Last episode, you decided to go into Subtropolis and finally resolve some of the mysteries surrounding Crandall and Vesuvius.

You started plundering Subtropolis with the role that everyone loves so much, and on your way down, you found a blank body that very much resembled Book.

You found a couple or at least one Humvee seeming to be following you in some way, and you left Vesuvius' head alone in a car.

Which in hindsight was not a good idea, I don't think.

Yeah, in hindsight, yeah.

I agree.

You guys left off on foot and ran back into the original Vesuvius, or at least someone who sounds like him, which is where we'll kick off right now.

Man, I thought it'd be way longer till you guys got back.

And he disappears and starts running down.

Yeah, Ocean's gonna turn to Book, and his eyes are just gonna be wide and be like, what the fuck is going on?

Holy fucking shit.

Do we even need to go to Crandall's anymore?

I mean, this is...

Well, let's talk to him.

Book?

I mean, yeah.

Yeah, Ocean's gonna be okay.

I think we should introduce Vesuvius and Vetuvius.

He comes out the front door, and he actually runs up and gives Ocean a hug, and then pats Book on the back, and he goes...

Oh, wow.

I see where the allegiances lie.

What you guys doing back here?

We came to see you.

Well, we figured we'd pass by and say hi, but looking for some medical supplies, actually, that's the big reason we're down here.

But we were in the area and figured we'd come swap by, see how you're doing.

I love when people contradict each other in the same conversation.

You mean you guys always?

Oh, yeah, man, sure.

Yeah, we got some probably some excess supplies back at the penthouse, but Crandall's been talking you guys up a lot, actually.

He's really happy with how you how you left whatever that thing was you're working on.

So I'm sure he'd be willing to trade if you got anything that he's looking for.

Do we bring anything?

You guys are noticeably bare bones.

God, in the back of the jeep, you have eight tarps and normal and two bodies searching things and two bodies.

Yeah.

Ocean's going to be like, well, to be honest with you, we don't really have much to trade right now.

We're we're kind of planning on doing some scavenging and then coming by.

But we knew you were in the area, and so we figured we'd just pop in and see how you're doing.

Actually, Vesuvius, if per chance we were interested in sort of a gig economy type situation, do you think we could trade some services for goods?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, we always need some need some help around here.

I don't know what your guys' skill sets are.

Last time, it seemed mostly to be technological in nature.

Well, I was thinking if there's anything Crandall needed to was, you know, having some trouble getting his hands on, we could maybe scrounge around and grab it for him.

Yeah, I don't know what any of those things are, but I'm sure you could go talk to him.

Want me to go radio him up and let him know that you're coming?

Just before you do.

And I'm like, I'm my eyes are going between Ocean and Vesuvius.

Are we?

Do you who?

I think there's something you should see.

OK, smash cut back to the G.

No, no, no.

I think I think Ocean should have an opportunity to go to be like, it's this pen if he wants to look at book and be like, well, this is kind of an impromptu thing.

We weren't really planning on this, but I guess it is pretty important for you to know this.

I think it is important.

You have to tell before we show you this.

I just we got to ask, has anything strange been going on over here?

Hmm, not really.

You guys, you guys haven't been gone that long.

It's been what, three weeks?

Yeah, not that long, but we've had some.

Yeah, we've had some strange stuff coming over from from at the precipice.

Some strange stuff has been going on.

So you might want to see.

Has anyone's voice changed recently?

No, you guys sounded a little bit like you've dumped yourself.

But besides that, everyone else sounds pretty normal.

I don't want to speak ill of my employer, but Crandall, he's not acting strangely, I'd say.

But he has been like asking us to get some stuff that's a little abnormal.

Yeah, nothing like crazy.

Like what kind of stuff?

Just man, I don't even know what it is.

It's like it's just very technological type things and it's not fun stuff.

Usually is down for the fun stuff.

But does Crandall keep it or do you think so?

I don't see it again.

He doesn't like install it in the lobby.

So then no one else around us sees it.

But I assume so.

Does Crandall trade with anyone?

Yeah, he's pretty open to I'm not one of the couriers, so I don't know who it is.

It's mostly people don't stop by too often.

He's usually sending people out to go bring things to them and come back, I assume, with their goods and services.

What about the yellow Humvees?

Oh, we try to stay away from them and they shoot you on sight.

You don't trade with them?

No.

Have you had any encounters with them Vesuvius yourself personally?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they like sometimes when we go out hunting for stuff, they'll like be around and they'll just like ominously stare at us.

Like with all their like goggles and shit on and their like crazy guns, just sitting there just looking at us.

We're like, go and they'll leave us alone.

But if we like wander into their turf at all, it's just right away.

Not even second thought, not even like, stop right there.

They just like crazy.

Have you ever opened your mind?

To the psychic maelstrom?

Yeah.

Yeah, a couple of times.

How long?

When was the last time you did it?

I don't know, man, probably a few years.

It's not a fun experience.

But it wasn't recently.

It's very personal.

No.

Yeah.

No, I'm sorry.

I know it sounds like I'm interrogating you, but I have good reason to.

That's the ocean's like, I know this all sounds really strange, but when you see what we show you, you're you'll you'll understand.

But I know we haven't shown this to you yet, but you got to promise something.

Yeah.

Best you can.

Best I can.

Try and try and keep this quiet from Crandall.

I was.

This isn't something that could hurt Crandall.

No, it's not.

I'm still an employee.

Like, yeah, we had a fun time together.

It's not something that's going to hurt anybody, but it could just make things awkward.

You'll understand more.

OK, how about I agree that the price of my silence will be dependent on how severe this information is to Crandall.

So if it's something that don't hurt him, yeah, I'll keep it to myself.

But if I think it is something important, I may need a little bit of agreement between y'all.

I mean, I trust your judgment.

I think that's a fair.

I think that's fair.

Like I said, we're not trying to hurt anybody.

We just this is important.

And I think of all the people around, this is something you should know about.

In fact, I think you're the only person who really truly needs to know.

Man, I'm really excited to see this now, man.

You've piqued my curiosity.

So let's take them to the Jeep.

Smash cut Jeep.

What the fuck is that?

Why you got a human head up there?

So Vesuvius, meet Vesuvius.

And I open the door and I pull out the head.

Hello.

It is a pleasure to meet you.

This man.

What do you mean?

This is Vesuvius.

So Vesuvius.

Can I can can we jump past us explaining the last three episodes to him?

I tell him everything.

Yeah, everything.

This does not look a thing like me.

What are you talking about?

They are identical, right?

No, one has a big bushy mustache.

OK, OK, we'll turn to Vesuvius like Vesuvius.

Are you OK with us taking off the disguise?

Do what you must.

We'll take the disguise off.

I slowly peel off the caterpillar mustache and remove the sunglasses in the hat.

Vesuvius gasps.

What the heck?

It's like looking in a mirror.

What the hell is what happened to the rest of them?

And he tries to take them in his hands, grab them.

Yeah.

Wait, no, I asked Vesuvius, are you OK with this?

I'm not OK with any of this, but I don't have any clear objections to him holding on to his head.

I mean, I feel like he's going to take good care of you seeing that you're him and he's you.

And here, I hand the head to Vesuvius.

He looks at her where he's like turning around.

He's like, man, I've never known exactly what the back of my head looks like before.

Is it?

Is it right here?

Yeah, unfortunately, I can relate to that.

I don't know what that means, but I'm going to keep going because it's crazy.

Where did you find this?

Vesuvius, we have reason to believe that he was created by the men or the people in the Yellow Humbies.

Why do you think that?

Are we going to show him your body, too?

We're putting a lot of faith in Vesuvius, this guy.

I trust head Vesuvius more than I trust regular Vesuvius at this point.

I agree, 100 percent.

Let's just say that we have it on very good faith that doppelgangers like this one were produced and placed by the people in the Yellow Humbies, the Yellow Humbie gang.

Man, that is wild.

So why don't you want Crandall to know about this?

The main thing is we don't know if other people might also be doppelgangers.

So you're saying that Crandall's been acting differently.

He's been acting or asking for things that he normally wouldn't have.

And well, we just wanted to make sure that you weren't suspicious that Crandall might be not himself.

No, man, this thing, first of all, ain't got no body.

That's like you should have known it wasn't me right away.

And second of all, its voice is like 180 degrees from mine.

Right.

That's why I asked you about the voices earlier.

Oh, yeah.

His voice is still the lovely Crandall voice that I remember how to do.

The other the other reason we didn't really want Crandall to know about it is, well, we promised Vesuvius over here that we would that that would keep him keep him away from Crandall.

Yeah, I would.

If we're going over there, I would definitely prefer to have my disguise reasserted.

Yeah, so we just want we figured it would be important for you to see this, but we would like to keep it kind of on the down low best we can.

Yeah, we can't we can't have the Doppelgangers coming around here.

Like that seems pretty dangerous.

Yeah.

Thank you for showing me.

I appreciate knowing there was someone.

Wait, Ocean and Vesuvius, the head Vesuvius, we need to figure this out.

Listen, and I want to grab Vesuvius from Vesuvius.

Let me grab Vesuvius.

We huddle.

I put my hand over a book and I got my hand around Vesuvius' head.

Vesuvius, do you agree that when you had a body, there were things that you did that you didn't necessarily know why, that there were maybe compulsions that were placed, that were programmed into your torso, we'll say, that made you act a certain way and maybe blow up a building?

Um, I don't know exactly what you're talking about.

I will say the actual explosion part, I did not plan for in any way.

Well, and going into that room too, right?

Well, I thought it was probably you guys in there, and I was trying to kind of create a smoke screen.

Not the literal one that my torso ended up creating, but kind of a metaphorical smoke screen to let you guys escape.

So I, and we appreciate that.

What I'm thinking is, maybe you were made to, not fear, but maybe you were made to want to avoid Crandall for a reason.

And maybe we should actually bring you to him.

We'll keep the disguise on, but maybe it would be a good thing to go against those feelings, to see if there's a reason why they're there.

Does that make sense?

You're telling me to become a better person.

I need to confront my fears.

No, you're a great person, Vesuvius.

You're great.

You did blow us up, but you're great overall, all said and done.

I'd say you're looking pretty good in the eyes of God, if you believe in such a thing.

But what I am going to suggest is maybe there's an ulterior motive to you wanting to not see Crandall that you don't know about.

Well, let me ask you this, original Vesuvius.

I turned.

Of getting away.

You turn his head so he's looking right at him.

Have you been thinking of dropping out of Crandall's gang at all, any time recently?

No, man.

This is a dopey shit place.

Love it here.

Doing great.

Well, there's at least one difference between the two of us.

When I had my torso, I had definitely decided to leave.

And it was something that had been building up in me for a while there.

And I wonder if that was just to push you towards us, instead of maybe to push you away from Crandall.

But I don't think we'll know unless...

Unless we actually meet.

Well, if you put on my disguise, I will come with you.

I must admit, I was very concerned about our walkie talkie plan.

I did not think it would work well.

I hate to leave the Jeep unsupervised, but I agree the walkie talkie plan had its flaws.

Ocean, can you carry Vesuvius?

Yeah.

Can I strap him up to you?

Uh, sure.

I put the harness on Ocean.

I want to be able to...

I might need some leeway here.

Just trust me.

Okay, I trust you, Book.

This head Vesuvius turns to you and whispers in your ear, Ocean.

You have much more comfortable shoulders than Book does.

He is very bony.

Well, thank you, Vesuvius.

That's the oddest compliment I've ever received, but I will take it.

Your trapeziuses are well formed.

Well, thank you.

I've worked hard on my trapezius.

You guys make your way back up to the tower, Crandall's pad, the cool old holiday in suites, I believe is what I said.

And you go up there, you see that camera is still in place where it was before the super high rise one.

Real quick, before we come up to the camera, do we want to cover up the Vesuvius head and completely try and obscure it from the camera?

Well, it does have a fedora on.

That's true.

But I think they'll still be a little suspicious if they see a severed head on somebody's shoulder because it's clear it seems to me that whatever because the camera at the top, when they're looking, that's how they got your head, the Vesuvius, the picture of Vesuvius, right?

It was from that same angle.

But they also got all of his memories somehow.

Yeah, I don't.

It's just it seems to me that they're probably whoever created the Vesuvius is probably monitoring the cameras that Crandall has.

Yes.

And I think if they see Crandall's head or the Vesuvius head, it might trigger something on him.

Shit.

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah.

Let's cover him up.

So when we come up, when when Ocean starts noticing that they were getting close to where the camera was, he's going to kind of like, hold on the Vesuvius, I'm going to take the Vesuvius off, kind of put him in my jacket on my back.

So that way, when I'm coming towards the camera, you can't really notice anything.

But the camera, the camera is pointed.

You're going to walk.

It's on a big pole out front, pointed towards the door.

So if you hold in front of you, it won't be able to see you at all.

It gets to your back when you walk in.

OK, so it's back when we walk in.

OK, it gets your face when you walk out.

Gotcha.

So as we're coming in, I'm going to take the camera, the Vesuvius head off my shoulder and kind of like put it lower under my body as part where it's kind of obstructed.

Yeah, you don't have to roll for that, definitely.

You're going to be able to hide his head from that camera angle.

And you guys walk in the front door and you hear a horrible grinding metallic sound that you quickly notice is someone playing a large tuba in the corner.

That looks like it's actually in pretty good condition and someone is accompanying them with a broken toy piano.

You do not see Crandall in this room.

And Vesuvius goes, You want me to go track him down or you want me to see if you can come on up there or what?

Whatever is your standard protocol.

Yeah, whatever you think will make it make for a good meeting.

Yeah, I give him a call.

He goes over to the phone in the lobby, which is you saw before what he used to call up to Crandall.

And you're in this room.

While we wait, can I talk to Ocean?

Yeah.

How are we playing this?

It's a great question.

We have a severed head.

So what is our goal with meeting up with him here?

It's to discuss...

I think we're trying to gather information, right?

Yeah, get information from him.

Figure out...

I mean, I guess...

Okay, so we said that we're willing to do some scavenging for him, so I guess we should stick with that, right?

Yeah, but we could also maybe perhaps be like, hey, you said you're looking for strange things.

And we'll be like, have we found something real odd?

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

Yeah, but we don't want him to take Vesuvius' head.

Oh, we'll just say it's not for sale.

It's not for trade.

Okay, that seems like we're putting a target on our backs, man.

He's a warlord.

That's true.

I know his jovial prasad kind of threw us off of that last time we met him, but we were really lucky to get out of there with our lives.

I have a stupid idea.

Okay, I like stupid ideas.

I'm going to change my voice and see how he reacts.

I just wanted to give you a heads up.

Okay, you don't think that's going to put on...

if he reacts and knows, do you think that's not going to put a further target on our head?

Well, I guess that's kind of...

I guess I'm using myself as bait.

Okay, well, I trust you, Book, but just keep in mind, that look around is like we are unarmed in a warlord's turf.

So don't do anything too dangerous.

And I mop my brow furiously.

So as Book and Ocean are talking, Ocean is going to kind of...

Because he's always kind of being the big quiet stoic type he is and kind of the guard dog person.

He's just going to kind of be taking in the surroundings.

And as he's talking to Book, he's going to just kind of subconsciously see if there's anything that seems different or anything that's kind of changed since the last time we were here.

Give me a read a sitch roll.

Read a sitch?

Yeah, Book is too busy preparing his voice to be looking around.

Ah, it's a three.

A three.

That's a pretty bad roll.

I think this may be the first time we've fully failed a read a sitch roll.

I think it is.

I think so.

That was fucking snake eyes.

Can I help?

Yeah, you can try to help.

Remember, it's a danger.

Yeah, moving it up from a full ass failure to a mixed success probably sounds OK.

Don't you if you fail a read a situation roll, you are now in a danger situation or something like that?

Well, if you fail any roll, you pretty much are.

But yes, did you also fully fail?

I rolled a three and that makes it a five.

So yes.

Yes.

OK.

So you have fully failed your help situation roll.

It looks.

You notice Book, you're helping him out here and you notice Ocean is looking at what in your mind is all the wrong things.

He seems to be looking at like what appliances are here.

He's like checking out the shower for some reason.

What he's really doing is looking to see if there's any new shit and stuff like that.

But you're like he is not on top of the people and you look at all the people and you're trying to read them to see if they have any ulterior motives or holding anything within.

And they all just seem like they're chatting, having a good time.

They've barely noticed you.

You think probably over the sounds of the tuba, like you're completely under the radar of a lot of these people.

Uh-huh.

But you do see the...

I'm so nervous.

The light on the elevator is lighting up and coming down towards the bottom.

And then you hear a ding and the doors open.

We'll see because, man, I think you can go on up.

All right.

Thank you Vesuvius.

Okay, so it says on a mist, the MC might have you ask one anyway, but be prepared for the worst.

So we are fucked.

We are el-fucked-oad.

All right.

I'll tell you what you didn't notice later.

Or we do the recap.

He'll tell us like, oh, yeah, you missed this extremely important thing.

That would have told you everything you need to know.

Is the shower still there?

Yep, shower's still there.

Can I use stern presence now?

I know.

You're going in the elevator.

Yeah, I didn't think so.

You start looking around with a stern face and you notice that no one is looking at you at all.

Hell, yeah.

Completely.

This is a trap.

Oh, this is such a bad idea.

I'm going to look down at Vesuvius, and I'll be like, Vesuvius, are you ready?

Do you have any more TNT in you?

Are you talking about this Vesuvius right here?

Yes.

Yeah, I'm ready, and I do not have any.

Should we call you Everest since we're in here, in front of Crandall?

Yeah, in front of Crandall while I'm using my other voice.

No, no, no.

Use your voice.

Your voice is the one part that is already disguised.

Yeah, Vesuvius didn't even recognize you with your verse.

I guess that makes some sense.

I'm glad we have such a good disguise.

Everest, I agree.

Oh, also call me red.

That's right.

We called him red.

Ocean, I think Ocean still introduced himself as Ocean.

But that checks out.

Okay, let's head on up.

Man, it feels weird being in here in this sort of position.

I'm going to actually.

Oh, I'm going to look at the Vesuvius and be like, does anything look different than what you remember?

Yes, his eyes narrow and he looks around and he goes, No, I don't think we had a tuba.

Well, besides the tuba.

No, this looks like exactly how I remember it.

I know most of these people in here.

If you need a rundown of their names at any point, let me know.

Just listen in on everyone's voices and see if you notice anything off.

Can you hold me up a little bit?

Yeah.

Can you angle me?

Like a radar.

I mean, Ocean's doing it.

Ocean's like picks them up a little bit, puts them up a little bit above.

Gotta plug my left ear and then let my right ear try to listen in.

I plug his ear and then I cut his ear for him.

And I'm helping.

I'm helping.

No, they are.

They are laughing jovially.

It seems like this is some sort of potty.

They're having a good time.

Maybe they got it.

I think they got a big break recently.

Sounds like they seem flush and happy.

Oh, fuck.

All right.

I don't think that bodes well for us.

Well, since we're offering to catch them, get them things they can't get on their own.

Well, should we hop in the elevator and yeah, see what happens?

You get in the elevator, the doors close behind you and the very, very slow elevator comes up.

You see he's now rigged up the elevator to be playing some Weird Al music for you.

There's an instrumental polka.

It's another one of the stupid polka medleys.

And eventually the doors ding and open up and you see Crandall.

You see his feet writhing in the shag carpet with no shoes on them.

You see his large 50 cal machine gun sitting on his desk.

And this time he immediately stands up.

He puts both his hands on his desk and goes, It's great to see you guys.

Hi, Crandall.

What brings you back to my humble abode?

All right.

I'm so stressed.

Am I doing it?

I guess I'm doing it.

I guess we're...

Dear, is this all on you?

Hello, Crandall.

It's good to see you again.

He's quiet for a second.

It's me, Red.

Don't you remember me?

Are you hiding Vesuvius's head right now?

That's the one part of the plan that I don't think we fully agreed on before coming in.

I'm going to say since we got inside, we've been kind of covering him.

So I'd say we should...

I would assume that we kept doing that.

Yeah, I'm going to assume we're still...

Yeah, not necessarily hiding him, but not making it super...

We're not like, look, here he is.

Hmm, this is Ocean and Red MacBook.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's us.

My weird owl saviors.

That's us.

Your memory continues to impress Red.

Or fuck, what's his name?

Crandall?

Crandall.

My name's Red.

That's suspicious.

Um, how do you like those CDs I gave you?

They're great.

We listen to them on the drive over.

We listen to them every time we're driving, actually, at this point.

Fuck, now he knows we have a car.

I love Track 7.

Which one's that?

Crandall, Track 7 is green.

It's one of the greatest songs I've ever heard.

Hey, Ocean, can I talk to you alone?

Yeah, sure.

Come on over here.

I got a cool thing to show you.

Okay, and I'm gonna walk over and...

Hey, Red, you go look at some of those cool things over there.

And he points like in the far corner.

I'll be happy to.

And he comes over and you feel his sweaty hand on your back.

It immediately goes through your three layers of clothes.

And he goes, Ocean, what the fuck's going on?

What happened to him?

Is he okay?

Yeah, he's fine.

Why is he talking like a scary person?

Oh, it's just what he does.

It's just what he's been doing lately.

Have you noticed anyone's voices change or anything different?

No, except him.

Is this right, Ocean?

I need you to be honest with me.

You promise?

And he grabs both of your shoulders and looks you right in the eyes.

I'll be as honest as I can, yeah.

You see his unibrow quivering because is this a prank?

I'll turn to Book and be like, Red, talk normally for the love of God.

Hey, Crandall.

Ariel smarted your prank.

That was a pretty good try.

We can't get anything past you, pal.

You gotta wake up pretty early to prank the prank master.

I'm going to turn to Book and just kind of like whisper in his ear as I'm telling him, I was like, yeah, this man doesn't know shit.

It's good to know we can trust him.

I mean, we can't trust him, but no more than we could previously at the very least.

So we'll be like, yeah, we were in the area.

We were doing some scavenging and we're actually looking for some medical supplies.

I figured we'd pop on in here and see how things were going while we're in the area.

See how how's the how's the hookup that we did for the with the with the audio go and see if it made sure it needed any repairs or anything like that.

No, it is working perfectly.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

We got maybe some medical supplies.

Maybe that we could trade.

What do you have anything?

Do you have anything else cool?

Nothing like that screen.

That was really cool.

Well, we were actually thinking if I would do a trades backseat for the old prank machine.

Well, we've already done a trade with the trade backseat machine.

But we promise it's in very good hands.

Good hands have it.

They're taking care of it.

They're pranking lots of people with it.

Yeah, but sadly, we don't know where it's at at this point.

I only hope it can prank even more than I could.

You know, Crandall, he just might.

But listen, we were actually thinking, if there was anything that you weren't comfortable sending your men after, maybe it's too dangerous or requires a certain skill set that we might be able to help out with.

I was thinking maybe if you're able to give us some medical supplies, we could, you know, come back with, you know, some material for you.

Some something real, you know, something of your choosing, something real special.

Yeah, we haven't done much scavenging yet.

We're still trying to figure out what we needs, but we figured if you had the medical supplies, you could tell us what you're looking for.

We could find them for you.

Yeah, I got something you guys could go after.

We could do a half now, half when you get back agreement.

I mean, we can just do an all when we get back if you really want to.

Oh hell yeah, that's even better.

Well, if we take half now, we can go back and give some to to Maple and make sure he knows that we're on it.

True.

That's a good point.

I didn't say that.

You and your pranks are ridiculous.

Ridiculous, no one would negotiate backwards.

We just know you like them, Crandall, so throw them at you best we can.

Yeah, when that sprite exploded, it really it ignited.

There was a Sierra Mist.

Sorry.

When that starry exploded, it ignited something.

Something in me that I just I haven't been able to stop pranking.

It's funny how when we recorded that starry was just a cool underground knowledge.

Now everyone uses starry.

Just rolling in starry all over the place.

How times have changed since our second episode.

That's true.

Should we introduce Everest?

Nope.

I don't think we should.

I do not think we should.

We'll just let him.

We'll let Everest.

All right, I'm going to kind of like tickle Vesuvius's ear.

Not enough to like make him giggle or anything like that, but be like, just make sure you keep an eye on things.

Let us know if you notice anything strange when we leave.

OK, I got you.

Can you can you unbutton one more of your buttons?

It's a little toasty in here, but just a slightly.

Crandall is going to think you're seducing.

What kind of object are you looking for, Crandall?

Well, I got something that I it's probably pretty dangerous and not too knowledgeable on it.

But if you look over here, this is what I'm trying to require next.

And he leads you over to a giant dot matrix printer.

Brady, are you old enough to know what that is?

And he leads you over to it, and there's just a kind of roll of paper that is printed out of it spilled over onto the ground.

And he pulls it up and he pulls along the serrated edges at one point.

He was a big paper cutter to cut off, and he shows you these schematics of its...

You don't have to roll your smart book.

So looking at a book, you can see it's some sort of device that can communicate through light, through laser beams.

Looks very advanced.

It's large.

It has all the dimensions laid out on it.

Yeah, I'm sure reading the schematics on the TD probably helps me interpret these.

Yeah, I'll look at the diagram, and look at the crown and be like, wow, this is pretty complex.

You want us to get all of these parts?

That's a lot.

Yeah, but I got some good news.

I know right where it is.

How heavy is it?

You probably want to use that vehicle you let slip your gut.

I think if you look there, it says 80 kegs.

80 kegs, got it.

And Book tries not to roll his eyes.

What are you working on?

What are you planning on using this for?

No, just need some cool things.

I'm always looking for cool shit.

Okay, is this something you plan on using, or something that you're pawning off to somebody else?

Give me a read a person roll.

Read a person?

Let's see if I roll higher than Snake Eyes.

I did!

That's actually a 10!

Ask me some of those read a person questions.

Okay, how many questions, how many do I get to ask him?

Three, I think.

You hold three, so you can actually, you don't have to, you don't have to pick them all at once, so you can hold three and spend them.

As long as we're talking to Crandall in this scene, right?

Yes.

So that one you just asked, are they telling the truth?

That's a good one to ask.

That's, yeah.

You can tell he is being nervous and evasive with those answers he just gave.

He has no idea what this thing does.

I think I'm gonna use my other hold here real quick and say, how can I get him to tell me who he's actually making this for?

Nice.

He really wants to be liked, and he clearly views some sort of connection with you.

He felt comfortable like calling you over and when he was suspicious about Book.

And he thinks if you or I think if you played that up, it would probably work on him.

I don't know why I ordered it that way.

If you played that up, it would probably work on him.

Because you let your Sierra Mist explode in your face.

So he just really wants to be liked.

It's like, man, Crandall, this is pretty impressive.

It's obvious that you got some pretty good connections here.

I'm impressed that you could find something like this.

You know how it is as warlords.

I'm sure you're working for somebody else that's helping you, that wants this device.

So I bet we could probably help you make this much more presentable for whoever you're trying to get it to if you let us.

Hmm, you're smarter than you look, Urshin.

I have a surprise to tell you.

I don't want this device at all.

You tricked me.

I thought it was something you wanted.

No.

In fact, I don't even really know who wants it.

I just get these messages here, and then a location to leave them, and they let me order anything from a bunch of different catalogs.

OK, we're learning a lot about Crandall here.

I'm a little bit less concerned, I will say.

Crandall is fucking shopping Sky Mall catalogs.

It's like, well, that makes so much sense.

I'm sure we could probably help you get a couple of extra things off this catalog by making this much more impressive looking.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

All right.

Brady was waving frantically.

I just had an idea.

So, well, yeah.

Am I hearing this, by the way, is Book hearing this?

Yeah.

Yep.

You're here.

You're right next to him.

Hey, Crandall.

I mean, it seems like going after all this stuff is a lot of effort.

You know, if we if you wanted to pass these off to us, I mean, we could start collecting this for you.

You don't even have to take time away from your regular, you know, your regularly scheduled warlording.

That could save me some time.

If I could forward these messages to, you know, to me.

How about we treat this one as a kind of sample run?

And if you do a good job, maybe we can kind of increase our relationship?

Maybe?

I think that's a great idea.

That's a good deal.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't actually know if you guys are good at getting shit.

You brought me one thing.

It was really cool, but yeah.

But some of this stuff is pretty hardcore.

I usually send more than two people after it.

You think you'll be okay?

We'll be fine.

We've got some resources on our side that I think we could probably handle.

As you learned today, I'm a master of disguise.

Okay.

Book, give me a read-a-situation roll.

Fuck.

Well, that didn't go so well last time.

That was Ocean's read-a-situation roll.

Yours was a help roll.

That's true.

Oh, so was I supposed to be rolling history with Ocean?

Yeah, it doesn't matter, though.

You rolled real bad.

Yeah, but I have plus three.

So what do we got me a six instead of five?

That was close.

Still a fail.

And now I'm rolling read-a-sitch.

It's not good news.

Oh, come on.

I rolled this.

I rolled a six.

Okay, can I try and help him read the situation?

I actually have pretty good help with eight assholes.

If you fail this, this is going to be catastrophic.

That's actually a ten.

You both get plus one history with each other.

I roll over.

We roll over at four, right?

Yes.

We can adjudicate that later because you can ask me one question.

What do you want me to know?

Why would he tell us that?

I feel like what's our best way out might be good.

What is our best way out of this conversation back out of here in a in an amicable way?

You know, without a roll, there's really only going down that elevator.

You don't even see stairs.

There's not like a fire escape we can jump down.

You don't see one from here.

What represents the best opportunity for us to learn more about Crandell's employer?

I feel like you're read a person.

We still have one more hold, right?

Oh, what should I be on the lookout for?

Yeah.

That's a pretty generic one, but that is the go-to.

I think I ask that every time.

With only one question, I think that will give us the most information here.

Yeah, what should I be on the lookout for?

As you guys are making this agreement, it's mostly Ocean talking to Crandell.

And you see sitting on his desk is a walkie talkie that is fully muted, but there is a red flashing light on it right now.

Oh, so he's listening.

Okay, I think I'm going to use my last hold here, actually.

Wait, so do we think that the walkie talkie is transmitting what we're saying?

Do you think it's recording us and transmitting, or do you think that someone's talking and it's just muted so we can't hear what they're saying?

Hey, Crandall, I noticed that walkie talkie here.

Are you transmitting what we're saying to somebody?

Oh, no, I turned it off when you guys came up.

Can I try to see what frequency it's on?

From a distance, you can't tell at all.

It's pretty advanced.

It's got a digital display that you can go.

Let's see.

I'm going to once again see if he's telling the truth.

He is.

He turned it off when he asked him up here.

OK.

I think you might be getting a message there.

Hmm.

Looks like it's.

Oh, yeah.

The flashy boy.

Yes.

Yeah.

Let's see what they need.

And he turns it on and you hear gunshots immediately.

Oh, oh, shit.

And he goes, oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Are these your guys?

These are men?

Yes, yes.

And he grabs the 50 caliber machine gun from his desk and runs towards the cradle.

Do you have?

Can we?

Do you have any weapons we can steal it use here?

They're all down there.

Just this one.

Oh, shit.

All right.

And he's mashing the button.

Give it.

And I say, give it.

Give the give the gun to Ocean.

Give me a Sway someone.

Google, do not fail me.

That's cool.

Right.

Oh, I really want.

Yes.

Mother of fuck, dude.

That was a five.

Oh, can I help?

I can't.

I can't.

I can't.

You can try it out.

I want to see like, oh, as he's saying, as Ocean panic, as Book panicking, he goes, give the gun to Ocean.

Ocean's going to hold his hand out.

It's like, Crandall, you're far too important for this kind of thing to go on.

Let me get that gun and I'll I'll see what we can do.

He should get advantage on that.

That's a good thing to say.

Pretty good.

Let's see how his role is.

Just give me a hand.

I got plus three help with Book right now.

That's a really good help.

That is that's a I can't do math.

That's an 11.

That's an 11.

I had to think for a second.

I think you start casting.

I was about to say, that's a 12.

And I was like, wait, no, that's not math.

It's a four.

I heard I heard to and I was like, a two.

No, you were that means you roll over with him.

So now your help is very bad.

Why?

I mean, yep.

Yeah.

Both of us are at one and both of us rolled over.

Yeah, we'll do a nice, good bonding scene after all of this.

If we make and he looks at you and there's definitely panic in his eyes and he just hefts the gun into your chest and it is very heavy.

You're actually impressed.

He was able to carry it.

It's tougher than we expect.

Yeah.

And he runs back to the desk and he starts flipping.

He goes, get down there.

Get down there.

I'm going to start rushing down there.

Who would be attacking me?

As we run down the corridor towards the wall, I'm going to pull out Vesuvius when Cranul can't see us anymore.

And I'm going to be like, Book, here, hold this.

I don't want him getting shot.

I strap him up to my shoulder.

It's time to deploy Vetuvius.

I see you using me as a decoy hat in case someone goes for the hedge.

No, Vesuvius, I would never.

The hat.

I'm using the hat.

It's a decoy hat.

Okay, so we'll take this.

I just need my hands free.

I'm sure you understand.

My head is also up here.

The elevator is still tremendous.

I think we'll take this.

I think we'll run down the stairs.

There are no stairs.

We'll take the elevator on this floor.

Yeah.

Maybe a couple of floors down there could be.

You could try it if you want.

But in the penthouse, there's not.

Can I look out?

Is there a window I can look at?

Not in the elevator.

He rushed you guys.

Can we go down one floor?

Yeah, let's go down one floor.

You go down one floor, and the elevator opens to a very dilapidated hallway with a bunch of doors that are all ripped off their hinges, basically.

But you do see there is a window all the way at the end of the hallway.

Is there also stairs that we can see, like a stairwell?

Yes.

There are some stairs that have the little emergency exit sign above them.

I would like to run to the window and look outside.

You look outside.

The window is super dirty and gross, but you wipe it away pretty easily.

And you see out in front of that flagpole, there are about seven.

Do I still have the ticker tape from the from the dot X printer?

Yeah.

The matrix printer.

You look down and there are about seven yellow humps.

And you see you see gunfire and smoke coming out of a lot of areas.

You can't you can't hear it from this side, actually.

I would like to look for emergency exit signs.

You saw one that leads to stairs.

I think we should dip.

I don't know if we should dip at this point, though.

We'll be losing.

Where's Vesuvius?

Last time you saw him, he was in the lobby.

Let's say if Crandall gets wiped out here, then we're going to lose him as a resource.

And additionally, I kind of like Crandall at this point.

Okay.

So Book goes for the emergency exit, and then he turns and sees that Ocean isn't following.

Book, we led them here.

This is our fault.

We can't let them die.

Ocean, these guys are growing people.

We don't know what kind of weapons they have.

I don't know, but I just...

I can't just let...

I already made one huge mistake and hurt somebody unintentionally.

I don't want to do it again.

And then Ocean is going to run for the stairs.

I hang my head, and then I follow my friend.

Okay.

Both of you give me a try something challenge.

Okay, that's a seven.

I'm reverting my decision.

This is actually a act under fire.

Okay, thank God.

That's actually going to be an eight then.

This is an act under fire because this is something that if you were not under pressure, it would be very easy to do.

You're going downstairs, but you are under pressure.

Okay, it changes a lot for me because it changes from a six to an eight, or for two and nine.

So it's a partial success for both of us.

You guys start running down the stairs as fast as you can.

You're going so quickly, actually get a little dizzy going around these corners.

Just bend, bend, bend, bend back and forth.

It's a lot of floors.

It's like more than 60.

Oh, fuck.

You're starting to get a little tired.

More than 60?

Oh, fuck.

I didn't think it was that high.

I told you it was a massive building.

I thought it was a...

I don't think a holiday inn like with ten floors at the most.

I've never seen a holiday inn with more than seven floors.

Re-listen to episode two.

Maybe the elevator would have been faster.

I mean, no, but at least with the stairwell, we can look below us.

Yeah, and we'll probably pop out at a spot that gives us more of an advantage here.

As you're running down, there's a big section of the stairs that are just like crumbled and deteriorating.

And as you try to leap over them, you kind of stumble a little bit, and both of you take one armor piercing carton.

Even with my cane?

We just like twist an ankle or something like that.

And yeah, and your muscles are all sore from fully exerting yourself to get down there.

When you're at about the 18th floor, you start hearing gunshots, and there's suddenly a very large rocking of the entire building.

Like, it's like, and you actually probably think it's good you're not in an elevator right now.

And you finish your way down the stairs.

Are you just pushing out the door?

Before pushing out the door, I want to kind of...

Is there a peephole or a like a window?

Like one of the small cutouts?

No, it's one of those big fire doors.

All right, I want to crack it a little bit to kind of peer outside first before popping out.

You open it up and you see you're in the backside.

You're actually behind the desk where Vasubis before called Crandall from.

There's like a little alcove back there, and you're just around the corner.

You actually can't see the lobby from here, but you hear lots of gunshots and you see two of Crandall's men hiding right around the hallway in front of you shooting guns.

One of them is Vasubis.

I'm letting Ocean take the lead here.

Ocean is going to pop out and be like, Vasubis!

And I'm going to duck over to him and start firing at the Humvee people.

I would like to point out here that just my presence alone now makes our gang, a group of people we're with, up a size and gang.

One size larger.

You pop around the corner.

Hold on, I'm looking up the gun for you.

That's a good one.

I'm going to use the handmade Gatling gun rules for this, which is three harm, area, close, far, harness.

That's what that is.

It's three harm, area, close, far, and what's the last one?

Harness.

Which if it's not anchored to something, there may be a penalty.

OK, I am going to slap the Gatling gun on top of the table that the counter to use the kind of the counter as the thing.

And yeah, as you whirl around the corner, you slap it on there with this giant clunk.

It actually cracks the like fake granite countertop a little bit.

And you see in this cloud of smoke in front of you, probably you can see at least a dozen of these men who poured out of these Humvees.

A lot are still at distance just shooting from outside, just blowing this place up, like not even considering where people are at, just spraying everywhere they see.

I would like to investigate the Humvees and see if there's a way to, like, because they have mounted machine guns on them, right?

Is that what you said?

Yes.

I would like to see if it is clear, if there's an opportunity for me to disable them, maybe.

Like, does Vesuvius have a grenade I could throw outside?

Anything like that.

Yeah.

Give me a read a central.

Those have not been going very well today.

And are you just shooting?

I am going to start shooting at the yellow Humvee people as I see them.

As the moment I lock eyes, I start firing my my gun.

Okay, give me a do battle.

You are actually evenly matched with them because they were a medium sized gang against a small sized gang, but you have cranked them both up to medium.

So.

That is a ten book.

I also got a ten.

And I got an improvement.

Oh, I got to think real hard.

This is a very important one.

So area lets you counteract any gang size advantage they have.

I'm going to say that will knock them down one level.

So now it's you've changed it from a small against large to a large.

Oh, shit.

Battle by you coming around.

He has turned the tide.

I'm not going to do anything anymore.

Actually, that was a 10 on the do battle role.

OK, doing battle when you attack someone while under fire, be prepared to exchange harm.

Roll plus heart on a 10 plus.

Choose whether to attack them with a 10 plus and act under fire with a 7 to 9 or vice versa.

10 plus on the attack someone because there's two options here.

I really, really want to do.

Impress, frighten or dismay them.

And I want to get them out of your way, which says you knock them down, drive them away or fight past them.

So I want to drive them away and impress, frighten, and impress, frighten or dismay them.

You whirl around the counter and slam the machine gun on top of it and just start unloading.

You look down at the Suvices hunkered underneath you and just looking up at you with wide impressed eyes as you mow through this undiscernible legion of yellow Humvee people.

All of the ones that are nearby that have like breached the actual building, there was like an attack force that went in, blew up the front of the building and started coming in to shoot people at close range.

They have all turned around and have started running back towards the Humvees, and a lot of them are like diving out of the way.

You see one guy even like rolled under one of the Humvees, but the people still inside are on top and aiming and shooting their mounted machine guns still.

So you kind of turn the tide, push people out of the immediate area.

One of the bullets comes through and nails you right in the shoulder.

It's this thick, wide bullet, and you take three arm, but you have armor and stuff.

So whatever you see, as you like wince away and look down on and kind of shake it off and refocus and re-grab the other side of the machine gun, you see this series of red dots appear near you.

It seems like something is locking on to this area.

Book, what do you want to read for your readers?

I one of them seems pretty clear.

What's my best opportunity to do the thing you want mentioned before?

So I am going.

Yes, I'm going to unlock a move that is going to allow me to ask a question that I want.

Oh, nice.

So the.

Oh, hold on.

So there's two moves that I really want from the Vigilant, which are the people who like the wolves.

But I'm going to.

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to do it.

So I'm going to unlock the move called Sniff the Wind.

And it says when you read a situation, ask a free additional question.

Furthermore, include these in the list of questions you can ask.

Now, I'm going to ask you to let me cheat a little bit, because technically I only got this upgrade because of that role.

So they probably shouldn't interact.

But I'm going to ask if I can ask one of those extra questions.

You can definitely do that.

OK, cool.

So the question that I want to ask, the first one is how close are the wolves?

Oh, you think they are about the same range as the people who are shooting at you?

I fucking knew it.

Dude, you could call the wolves.

I fucking knew it.

You could call the wolves.

Oh, wait.

They're the same range as the people who are attacking us, right?

You sense, you feel like you are encircled with wolves right now.

Yeah.

So they are the, we're being attacked by the wolves right now, right?

Probably.

OK.

Oh shit.

OK.

They helped me.

Oh, man.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

OK.

So, yeah, I still want to know if I what my best opportunity to disable those, the car turrets are.

You see the same thing I described to Ocean, where these lights are focusing in on right over his shoulder where he's at.

You think they're focused very closely on him right now.

You do see to the side of Vesuvius on the ground, he has some C4 and a detonator that he has not used yet because he has been kind of mashed down here.

And you think getting away from this area, you may have an opportunity to be kind of outside of their immediate focus.

They're trying to deal with the large man with the machine gun for the next several seconds, at least.

Hmm.

One more question.

Yeah, I guess what poses the biggest threat to me, I'm assuming, is the guys with the machine guns.

What's the best way to get to the Humvees without getting hurt?

Yeah, but I kind of already asked that.

That's true.

With the opportunity to blow up the Humvees.

But now I'm like, I don't know that I want to blow up.

The wolves helped me.

They're not helping us right now.

I'm conflicted, man.

They're shooting us right now.

What represents the best opportunity for me to get them to stop shooting?

Oh, that's a big question.

Get everyone to stop shooting, I should say.

You think they are based on what you've heard of them and based on what you've experienced from them, they are used to being a completely superior force.

So if you can convince them that they're going to lose, they will quickly try to escape, is what you think.

That's what your tactical mind is telling you.

What if I don't want them to escape, though?

Good luck.

What if I want to talk to them?

I don't think they're going to talk to us right now.

I'm going to grab Ocean's shoulder.

I'm going to yell.

I'm going to yell in his ear.

I'm going to be like, it's the wolves.

It's the wolves.

All the wolves are shooting at us.

I'm going to go, I'm going to go, argh!

And I want to open my mind to Psychic Wiltshire.

Oh, I was going to suggest doing that.

Ocean was thinking about doing that too, actually.

Yeah, but you're shooting a gun.

I know, I know.

That is such a...

Oh, I'm so glad that one of us actually is doing that.

Give me your weird roll.

I got...

What did I roll?

Yeah, no, I got a six, so that sucks.

Oh, no.

You kind of hunker down and you focus.

How do you want to try to contact them?

I think I'm going to howl again.

Howl.

You start your howl, and it kind of shocks everyone around you.

Vesuvius looks up at you.

From everyone else's perspective, you also, your howl is just kind of cut off short, just like all the other ones you've heard.

But they all just see you just standing there, strangely, with your mouth open.

Ocean, you see those green lights all focusing on him.

Little lasers that were done before.

As you open your mind, you just hear like a thousand voices talking way too fast, and you can pick out just these minor little commands like flank left, flank left, flank left, aim it, aim it, aim it, aim it, down, okay, and three, two, one, fire.

And there's this large rocket that comes shooting out and is hurling.

Ocean is going to, I was about to say when Ocean hears the rocket noise and looks up and sees it flying out of Book, he's going to tackle Book to the ground to try and get him to like knock him out of the way and drag them both down to the floor.

Okay, give me a very literal act under fire.

That is a seven.

A seven, okay.

Back in the Psychic Maelstrom book, you are just trying to call it, you're trying to kind of quiet these thoughts that are just smashing into mixed with all of these voices as just this annoying chirp of binary just blowing through your brain.

And suddenly right out of right out of your peripheral, you see this huge wolf of the Maelstrom tackle you to the ground and just get flattened and you feel this heavy weight on top of you as this explosion occurs above you.

And both of you take three harm.

Ocean has one left until he is dead.

Same.

But as you're tackled to the ground, you snap out of it.

You are back in the material realm.

You're the it actually feels strangely nice for a second for your brain to just be quieted, even though there is gunshots and explosions and ringing in your ears.

It's like compared to what you're just experiencing.

It is calm and relaxing.

But then you refocus and realize that they have kind of taken a break to assess the situation.

The gunfire kind of slows down.

There's smoke all around you, but it's starting to clear and you're starting to see the silhouettes of these Humvees.

What you guys do in that moment?

Yeah, Ocean's going to look at Book and is like, What are you doing?

You're going to get yourself killed.

And he's going to turn back and he's going to grab the C4 from the Suvius, and he's going to chuck it, hurl it at the Humvee people.

Give me an attack someone.

Oh, Ocean's so good at attacking some people.

That's another 10.

OK, what do you want the full success on?

Full success on the attack someone.

I'm going to take the act under fire.

So I am going to inflict terrible harm.

Plus one.

So now that's plus two because you're a gang size bigger.

Yes.

And I'm going to.

So there's an option that says seize hold of something.

Could I say I seize hold of the hotel and say we have definitively seized the hotel?

You can do that, especially since the amount of damage you're about to inflict.

Yep.

So you come around the corner after tackling them.

You see the C4 on the ground.

It's like right in front of your head from where you tackle them down.

You grab it.

Grab the detonator.

You come around the corner to get a good throw.

And you see with ridiculous inhuman like accuracy, this person immediately aims their sight at your forearm and shoots twice into it.

And you feel the pain just ripple through you.

It's to harm.

I shrug off entirely.

So you shrug off this to harm, which becomes zero.

And you just recent yourself and just throw through the pain.

And the C4 goes hurling through the air skids to the ground.

It's not right where you wanted it.

That pain threw you off a little bit.

But you push the detonator, and one of the Humvees just fully explodes.

And there's this big fireball of gasoline that shoots outside.

And you see immediately the people who are in the Humvees start turning around and booking it away from Crandall's place.

There are a few remaining, but Crandall's men who are still standing, come out and start taking just pot shots at him.

And a few of them fall down dead, a couple run away.

But everyone has tried to leave the area.

After, as they start running away in Ocean, he's like firing off at them as they run off.

When he notices they're all gone, he's just going to kind of take some deep breaths, feels the adrenaline wearing off.

He's going to turn back and he's realizing he yelled at Book, and he's going to turn back and be like, look, are you okay?

And he's going to hold out his arm to help him up.

And I do not grab your arm.

And I just say, you're one of them.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode.

Coming up this week at some point, or next week, is a special recap episode where Bookin Ocean and their creators, Brady and Jacob, are able to ask me any questions about any of the weird stuff we've done in these first 20 episodes.

So listen for that shortly.

The music and editing was performed by Stu Masterson, Brady McDonough made that logo, and Jacob whispers the secrets of the cosmos into the wind.